Video from OKandrew Planespotting Channel: This video was shot six years ago by ctanislav1 but it was posted a couple of weeks ago and purportedly shows a virtually abandoned Il-96 started up after years of open air storage and flown away after what might have been a quick shakedown trip down the runway. It apparently got from Domodedovo Airport to Zhukovsky Airport.
Ilyushin was always famous about managing redundance of all systems. In the Soviet era there were talks that even one out of the multiple (3-4) engines was enough to fly those planes, alone. Tradition started from the old propeller-driven times. Ilyushin used to be a bomber specialist…
After many years of flying 4-engine heavies, I would sincerely doubt that the Ilyushin could fly very far on one engine…just far enough to get to the scene of the crash. The laws of aerodynamics just wouldn’t allow it.
I just checked it wasn’t a long flight maybe 20 miles between the airports. Some one went to the trouble to remove the dirt on the side with the airlines name. Probably being repositioned to be parted out to keep other birds flying……
